


June

by ottermo



Series: Fandot Creativity [7]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9239228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Fills from the June 2016 fandot creativity night :)So far: the crew go camping, Herc experiences his first summer christmas (and learns where the tradition came from), Martin has a chat with his dad (and learns the value of sunscreen application), and everyone gets altogether too warm in the portacabin.





	1. Camping

 

The tents are up, the stars are out,  
The world is dark and still.  
The campers lie in sleeping bags  
And feel the nighttime chill.

“Carolyn, are you awake?”  
A voice cuts through her sleep.  
“I heard a noise outside the tent -  
I think it was a sheep!”

She waits a bit. And sure enough  
The bleating sounds once more.  
She groans and says, “Go back to sleep,  
It can’t get in, I’m sure.”

Outside, beneath the gloomy sky,  
A sound effect’s turned off,  
A chuckle’s stifled hastily  
Disguised inside a cough.

The prankster crawls inside the tent  
That’s pitched right next to Herc’s  
He snuggles in his sleeping bag,  
And in the darkness, smirks.

 


	2. Get Dressed, Ye Merry Hercules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For sircarolyn/timeladyleo in the Summer Christmas fic exchange. The prompts were "Herc", "snowflakes" and "the fun in flying".
> 
> Watch, as I somehow twist that into an Arthur fic regardless.

 

“This year,” Arthur announced, importantly, “I’ll be pulling out all the stops for Summer Christmas.”

“As opposed to every other year,” said Carolyn, “Where you’ve been quite subdued and quiet about the whole affair? I must say, I remember it differently.”

Arthur patiently waited for her to finish. “This year’s going to be even better! It’s Herc’s first one!”

Carolyn considered this. “I think he was around for Summer Christmas last year. He came with Douglas and Martin in the evening.”

“But he wasn’t living with us. So he didn’t get the whole thing.”

“No, true.” She paused, looked at him with some suspicion. “What are you planning?”

He smiled enigmatically. “That would be telling.”

“Yes, it would. That’s why I asked. So as to let you know I wanted you to tell me.”

Arthur tapped both sides of his nose at once. Carolyn imagined this was to let her know it was a doubly secretive secret. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

* * *

It was raining heavily on the morning of June the 25th, because such was life. Herc and Carolyn awoke early, to the sound of rain on the windows, and the distant, hearty singing of an Arthur in high spirits. Which was saying something, because ‘high’ was Arthur’s spirits’ default setting.

“Geeeeeet dressed, you mum and gentleman, let nothing you dismay! For it is summer summer summer summer Christmas day!”

“'Get dressed’?” murmured Herc questioningly, turning his head a bit to look at Carolyn.

“Lady Mondegreen requests the pleasure,” she remarked. “I hope you’re ready for this, Hercules. If anything, Arthur at Summer Christmas is worse than Arthur at ordinary Christmas, because he sees it as his duty to fill the world with as much cheer as there is in December, only without billions of other people to share the load with.”

“Well then,” said Herc, amiably, “We’d better go and claim our quota.”

He got up, and strode, pyjama-clad and grinning, across the room. Carolyn followed, grabbing her dressing gown from a hook as she passed. The delay while she put it on was very brief, but even so, when she reached the kitchen, it was to find festivities in full swing already: the CD-player was blaring, and Herc and Arthur were both dancing.

“Good heavens,” she said.

To think she had been trying to warn him. He was just as bad.

Or just as good.

But the last, an afterthought, remained firmly inside her head.

* * *

After a suitably festive breakfast, Arthur proudly lead them into the sitting room, which was utterly covered in paper cut-out snowflakes.

“Did you make all of these yourself?” asked Herc, visibly impressed.

“Douglas helped a bit, yesterday,” Arthur said breezily. “Once I’d run out of paper. Some of these are made out of one of his old manuals.”

“Is nothing sacred?” Carolyn muttered, but grinned.

“He did the fiddly ones,” Arthur explained, lifting up a finely-snipped snowflake of a truly beautiful complexity. “And,” he lowered his voice, awed, “He didn’t even cut his fingers!”

Herc frowned, and looked pointedly at Arthur’s own hands.

Accommodatingly, Arthur stretched them out for Herc to examine. “I only needed three plasters this year,” he said, with an air of practised casuality. “The number keeps on going down.”

* * *

They were scheduled to fly to Dewhurst airfield that afternoon. Thankfully, it was just cargo, so no passengers to be confused by the Christmassy activities.

“How are you enjoying your first Summer Christmas as a live-in?” Douglas asked, rearranging the tinsel that was spiralled around the control column.

“Massively,” Herc said, sounding utterly contented. “Although, I must say… if you can pardon a moment of sentimentality - it is Christmas, after all -”

“I’m all ears,” said Douglas. “Ears, memory, and a penchant for blackmail.”

Herc ignored him. “I must say,” he repeated, “A house containing Arthur is, at all times, a happy one.”

The tinsel chose this moment to detach from its double-sided sticky tape and fall off the column.

“Yes,” said Douglas, “He puts the fun in flying, and in staying put, does that one.”

 


	3. Bonus Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Extra bit for the previous chapter, dealing with the origins of Summer Christmas!

 

“So how long has Summer Christmas been around?” Herc asked, late into the night, as they lay side by side. “When did Arthur start it?”

Carolyn was very quiet for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to let him in on a secret. “He didn’t, in fact.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You mean–?”

“Yes, it was me.” She rolled over slightly, to be facing him. “If I’d been blessed with a little foresight, I might not have made such a thing of it, but at the time he was quite… he didn’t focus on anything for very long, I had no idea it would become an annual event in perpetuity.”

Herc chuckled. “Nonsense. I saw you at dinner. You were having a great time. Don’t pretend you regret your invention, darling, just get on with the confession. How did it come about?”

“In my defence,” she said, guardedly, “It was a nightmare time. He was sixteen. Gordon had one foot out of the door already, and it was making him even more irate than usual. Not the kind of home environment you want, in your exam year, even if you’re a model student. Which, as I’m sure you can imagine, Arthur was not.”

“Ah,” said Herc. “Poor Arthur.”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “I was at my wit’s end, Arthur wasn’t coping with the stress. He’d gone through the whole of school with teachers putting very little pressure on him, and now suddenly they were piling it on him just to pass his minimums, and Gordon was joining in. No matter what I did, and however much he was trying, it wasn’t going to happen, I could tell. So we made a deal.”

She shuffled very slightly, pulling the duvet around her shoulder. “His last exam was on June the 25th. I told him that if he could just make it to that day, then there’d be a surprise waiting at home. Gordon was – off somewhere, I don’t even remember. And I decorated the house as though it was Christmas. Hid presents everywhere, et cetera. I know, it's… soppy.”

Herc shook his head. “You’ve really got to stop saying that as if it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s against my every principle. But anyway. That’s what I did. He loved it, of course. Wouldn’t stop talking about it for weeks. It drove Gordon even madder, but it was worth it, I thought. And after that, every time there was, you know, a rough patch, with Gordon and Hayley and the divorce - I would remind him. That it always ends at some point. That you’re never more than six months away from next Christmas.”

“That's…Carolyn. That’s really lovely.”

“I know, do shut up about it.”

“No, I shan’t.” He leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. “I love you, you soppy old thing.”

She tried to force a frown, and very nearly managed it.

“And again, against my every principle,” she replied, “I love you, too.”

 


	4. Ice Cream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a li'l bit of Martin angst to, er, fit with such a nice prompt.

 

So, Dad.

It’s a been a while since I talked to you, but I don’t suppose you mind. If you can hear me, then you must be able to see what’s… Well, even if you can’t.

I’d like to talk to you, anyway.

It’s all a bit mixed up, at the moment. So many… Well, not _so many_ options, I suppose. Just two, really. Go, or… or stay. Go to Switzerland, I mean. A proper job. I’m still getting used to the idea that you’d be proud of me being a man with a van, really, but this is even better. Everything I’ve ever dreamed about. 

Or stay. Stay here, in Fitton, with MJN, in England, where I can drive to Mum’s in under an hour, and visit you in the…. visit you by the church, and see Simon and Caitlin when I have to, all the places you’d take us, growing up… It’s funny. People think pilots aren’t attached to their home soil as much, but it’s…there’s that to think of too.

I wish I could hear you helping me on this one, Dad. 

I’m… I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I thought of something this morning. If I go, I don’t want to… sell the van, just for nothing. It’s… I’m really glad to have it. When Mum told me the real reason why I got it, not Simon, I… but it wouldn’t fetch any money to speak of, Dad, you probably know that. Not nearly enough to set me up in Switzerland, and anyway, I’ll have a salary for that. Selling it would be…. I’m not going to just sell it on to just anybody.

I’m going to give it to Arthur.

I wish you’d got to meet him. He’s - mad, really - but - the kind of friend I always needed, back when you would shake your head seeing me walking home on my own. Simon never had that problem, did he? Arthur, he – you’d really like him, Dad. And I think he could do something with the van, just like I did. It would make me feel a bit less awful, about… you know, ruining his job and everything. They wouldn’t stay afloat without me. 

I’m ‘adequate’ for Swiss Airways, but I’m… afraid I might have made myself indispensable at MJN. 

Just on a practical level. Economical. 

I don’t know what Arthur would be like as a man with a van, really. Maybe he’d think of something else to do. Sometimes he talks about being an ice-cream van man. That wouldn’t really work with yours, I suppose.

But it might make you smile if he tried. 

I don’t know what I’m going to do, either, but maybe I can make you smile too.

 


	5. Sunscreen

 

“Ow, ow, ow. Ow, ow!”

“Are you singing a song, Skip?”

“ _No_. I’m saying ‘ow’.”

“I knew that bit. I just thought it might be a song as well. When I stub my toe I always do my 'ows’ in a tune to take my mind off it.”

“We can’t all be as musically-minded as you, Arthur.”

“Oh, hello, Douglas. I didn’t see you there.”

“That’s because I blend so well into the background. It’s easy to do, when you’re not lobster-coloured.”

“Oh, ha-ha.”

“I’m glad you’re in a laughing mood, Martin. That looks painful.”

“I’m not, and it _is_.”

“Do you want my advice?”

“Go on.”

“Next time, remember to put on sunscreen.”

“…..Thank you. That’s very helpful and relevant to my current situation.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I think he might have been being sarcastic, Douglas.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Yes. On my course in Ipswich–”

“He’s being sarcastic, Arthur.”

“Oh! It’s confusing when you’re _both_ doing it!”

“Well, you know. We must get our fun from somewhere, out here, under the _boiling hot sun_. Oh, wait, no, I was forgetting! No need to make our own amusement, when there’s a human lob–”

“Shut _up_.”

“All right, all right. No need to get so red in the face.”

 


	6. Humidity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand a poem to finish.
> 
> I'm now only 7 months behind on this quest to AO3 my FCN fills. One day, it'll happen. I'll be up to date. One day...

 

The sun had settled Fitton in a blanket of humidity,  
To limit productivity and challenge all placidity,  
And stop a cooling icecream from maintaining its solidity:  
It dripped all on the carpet, causing Carolyn’s lividity.

As Arthur bent to clean the little puddle of liquidity,  
The captain and first officer examined the validity  
Of word-game entries varying from wisdom to stupidity  
Attempting to ignore the stuffy lack of sweet aridity. 

The client never came, which caused a feeling of acidity.  
“Perhaps he’s died of heatstroke,” Douglas said with some morbidity.  
Eventually, equipped with money and his intrepidity   
They sent their steward out to trade some coin for the lucidity

Of thought and mind and soul. Because it’s really rather nice   
To clear a clammy head with something cool and served with ice. 

 


End file.
